What the heck is a jammer? 
Good question. Here's the Jammer Wikipedia entry, but all you have to know is that Kaspar Wicki in 1896 and later Brian Haynes in 1986 arranged the notes on their instruments using music theory. (Wikipedia: Music Theory) Using two dimensions and small keys, they created a compact keyboard that places more keys under the fingers than a piano does. In our opinion, this layout is the best, ergonomically, of all the instruments we have reviewed - see Isomorphic Musical Keyboards.
Fast-forward to the present: with the help of the online community and great luck, we managed to create "Wicki-Hayden" keyboards and help others make them. We now call them "jammer keyboards" because the design lends itself to jazz jamming. Besides, we think "jammer" well describes the coolness of our keyboards.
Please, do note that the difference between a jammer and a piano is less than it appears. With the jammer, fundamentally all we do is to change the placement, shape and colour of our instrument's keys and pair keyboards symmetrically.
These changes greatly simplify hand & finger movement, reducing the distance the hands move by a factor of ten or more and standardizing movement.
Imagine a typewriter built like a piano
Here's an analogy: picture a computer keyboard with each key placed on a single row, stretching out left and right, instead of the standard Qwerty pattern shown. Intuitively, a long line of keys would take longer to learn and be slower to operate.
Minor refinements add up 
We jammer enthusiasts continue to refine and test jammer design. For example, the notion of paired, symmetrical keyboards was highly controversial at first. Then testing showed that using the same fingers on each hand to create the same sounds and chords greatly speeds learning. Further, two-thirds of playing skills learnt by one hand transferred to the other hand.
We found that jammer keyboards may have more keys than a piano yet remain light, portable and powered by a smart-phone, with seam-less thumb-accessible pitch and modulation controls.
Systematically colouring the keys helps guide play and may train the player's ear.
The effects of many "small" changes do mount up and create a musical instrument that, in theory, should be fast, versatile and easy to learn. However, in the real world, there is a vast gap between "should" and "Demonstrated Fact." Fixing one thing may break something else.
Full-width jammer keyboard, with both flat and sharp keys
So does it work?
Well ... Yes, and No. The instrument works quite well physically and is a good platform for composing (my opinion, after composing pieces in music theory classes, using a jammer).
I found the jammer to be much faster to learn and usually easier to play. Since musical intervals have a precise relative position, it may encourage learning precise relative pitch.
However, there are challenges. They appear at this point to be easily remedied by directed lessons, as is discussed in later articles.
Humble pie
Perhaps the biggest problem for the novice is psychological. To the novice, to the casual observer, it appears that the main skill of the pianist is t0 know the right fingering of the piano. Especially if the observer is a musician with singing or single-note instrument skills. This caught yours truly. The reasoning was thus
"I already have rhythm skills, and enough of a musical ear to sing in choirs. If I have an instrument that has only a single fingering, instead of 24. I should be able to learn it easily".
You still have to practice, to 'pay your dues'
Having an instrument that has many fewer fingerings to learn will not remove the need to learn many other skills. You still have to learn rhythm, rhythm, and yet more rhythm. You have to train your ear. You have to practice until the instrument becomes one with your fingers. You have to learn to be a musician, the whole of which is more than the parts. The jammer will not help with these skills.
Still, a lot of practicing can be saved. However, at this point, it's unclear what percentage reduction, how many hours of practice will be saved.
Surprising things can trip up the novice learner. Here's an example: in my piano classes my teacher's most plaintive cry was "Ken, watch your accidentals". I was always forgetting to read my accidentals off the score, and forgetting to play them in pieces that I knew. Why? On the jammer, many of the accidentals were automatically taken care of by changing the position of the hand. Consequently, I built up less skill around accidentals compared to my compatriots.
The jammer saves significant time in some areas:
- Much practice to learn fingering and hand movement in 12 keys, on each hand does not have to be done.
- The jammer player will be equally fast in each musical key, with either hand.
- Skills learned with one hand will be available on the other.
More to Come
For more information, see these "Jammer vs Piano" articles:
Next: part 2: No Qualifications, little Experience, deep Interest
Back: part 1: Comparing musical instruments; modern to age-old
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Jammer vs Piano: Table of contents
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